Mazloum

I hate ruffling people's feathers, but I will inevitably do so when I broach the topic of religion and beliefs. See, the fact that it ruffles people's feathers in the first place is what's wrong. People find it immensely hard to realize that religion is theirs, and theirs alone. Sure, it's nice when you have others who share your point of view (or faith), but it is not necessary. Let's examine something; what is religion? Faith. Belief. It is a decision you make, based on 'something' (be it reflection, introspection, family's handed-down beliefs, seeing God in a donut or a bagel), to have certain thoughts about the world around you. Perhaps you believe that there's a higher existence or a deity that created the world. Maybe you think that the world just came to be through some sort of cosmic incident that came along. You might be under the impression that the world is borne on the back of a giant turtle (If you do, then hello, Terry Pratchet! Glad...

Note: A long time ago, spurred along by a friend of mine , I tweeted a few statements starting by the word "She". They were supposedly directed towards a woman, an entity who might (or might not) exist,  attempting to encompass what she was to the writer. It was a fun endeavor, one that I undertook several times afterwards, and so I decided to see what would happen if I attempted it upon this platform instead; wanton prose in essence, directed at the mysterious yet omnipresent She. You look into her eyes and you see everything; your own self, reflected in the ever-flattering mirror that is her beautiful soul. Those orbs of vision, they always comfort you, telling you that you're not so bad at all. The whites of her eyes, crisscrossed with rivulets of red, a reminder of the purity you once had but misplaced. She tells you that it's still there, buried beneath the years of disillusionment, pain and disappointment. Her irises, much like everything about her, are in co...

We live in a curious world; one where the honest portrayal of feelings and emotions is frowned upon. We're encouraged to be secretive, to keep our emotions and thoughts to ourselves. We all do it, thinking that we don't want to be a burden upon others, we don't want to bring them down with our own sadness (or, alternatively, don't want to flaunt our happiness in their less-than-fortunate faces), and so we keep to ourselves. Problem is, this is also combined with the revelation that 'No One Cares'. It is hammered quite intensely during several years, that no one really gives a damn about those thoughts and feelings you have. 'Everyone's got their own troubles, and they're not exactly keen on having yours added to the mix' as someone once told me. This just reinforces the concept of humans becoming thought islands, forbidding in their remoteness and almost inaccessible. It saddens me, especially as someone who's inherently socially inept. ...

The human mind is a very curious thing. I'm sure my prior posts have given you at least some insight into mine, and that - as hard as it may be to believe - is not as strange as it gets. This might be somewhat shocking, but maybe if you take a seat and a few deep breaths, we can get through this together. Now then, it has been brought to my attention how insidious missing someone is, you don't realize that it's happening, and you might even be doing so conscious effort to NOT do so. And yet, you're just sitting there, and  BAM! You realize that you do miss that person, and that you wish you could see them again. The annoying thing about this is that sometimes you have no idea why you'd miss them in the first place. I mean, there are some truly horrible people out there - I don't mean that we tend to miss the horrible ones only, but bear with me. There are people with whom you've shared some truly unforgettable (at least for you) experiences, and then fo...

One of the things I regret the most is that I cannot remember the first book I consciously read. I recall a lot of the books I read as a child, including the abridged Shakespeare plays and dreary Charles Dickens novels. The one I seem to remember most fondly is the massive book of scientific experiments and trivia, including some of history's grandest mishaps. Memories of this book still swim fondly through my consciousness, even though I've lost it a long time ago. I'm even often reminded of it by my parents, telling me how I used to spend hours reading the damn thing, even if I didn't understand half of what it included. Strangely, most of my high school and early undergraduate years were marred by a deplorably reduced rate of reading; I read maybe a book or two every year, and to this day I cannot quite place the reason for such behavior; perhaps it was the immense pressure such years entailed in terms of workload, perhaps I'd lost contact with the 'Me...

I must admit, I did not expect the massive outpouring of support and praise that the initial blog post garnered, and for that I thank all of you; you who have given me the chance to talk to you, to listen to what I had to say, to read these few words that so easily flowed out into the ether. I appreciate it more than you could ever think possible. Perhaps I might have painted a much too dark image of myself, but that was not my intention. I am a person who's in a state of constant mental motion, my opinion of myself varies wildly depending on so many factors that I cannot even begin to recount. I don't even think I know them all. But, I am at least aware of the fact that all is not as it seems; the bad is not so bad, and the good is never so good. You'll excuse the somewhat mathematical reference, but you learn to 'average out', so to speak. You usually end up with something that is, for lack of a better word, realistic. Realism is often attached to more negati...

I may have once been pegged as a writer, but for the longest time now, I’ve been unable to conjure anything worthwhile to write. Perhaps my inner editor has evolved to the extent of being able to strangle my thoughts in their infancy, so that nothing’s left now. It is a thought that scares me, often to the extent of mental paralysis, but it is one worth noting nevertheless. It is for this exact reason that I am writing now, to see if I am still capable of doing so. One might argue that I never had the capability, but people also say that they used to enjoy what I had to say in writing. I will not lie and say that it is for them that I am making these attempts. They are for me. Perhaps it is selfish, perhaps it is narcissistic, and perhaps it is none of these things. I do not know, and I couldn’t care less. So, here I am; writing, ranting, observing, telling, hiding and - perhaps not in the literal sense - speaking. I sometimes feel somewhat pretentious when I write, though my words ar...